QB Thread (merged)

[Stan R]

Look I could care less who is actually starting for the game. Could be any of our three guys. But when one QB seemingly shows himself to be the more talented QB with more determination and then we get a bizzare response from our coach as to why he picked the wrong guy, I have concerns.

But that doesn't mean I think we should boo Phillips. Or even DD for that matter. We can hold off on booing DD until after a loss.

[Cerebus]

This is a conversation I had with my lovely wife this week while in the car.

She turned to me and said:

"I used to think that if we played our best and the UT's of the world played their worst... and the moons were alligned just right... that WE COULD win those games. You would tell me that I am wrong, but I didn't see it.. I really understand now."

It is like a child discovering there isn't a Santa Claus.. I felt sad for her discovery.

My wife is the most knowledgable football wife. I love her passion for my passion.

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So, years of major medical trauma experience failed to kill her innocence, but a few years following Mean Green athletics did it? Ouch.

[SilverEagle]

This is a conversation I had with my lovely wife this week while in the car.

She turned to me and said:

"I used to think that if we played our best and the UT's of the world played their worst... and the moons were alligned just right... that WE COULD win those games. You would tell me that I am wrong, but I didn't see it.. I really understand now."

It is like a child discovering there isn't a Santa Claus.. I felt sad for her discovery.

My wife is the most knowledgable football wife. I love her passion for my passion.

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My wife is not so knowledgable (X's and O's), but she knows a good product when she sees one. She also loves my passion for my passion. Only now, she sees more pain than passion, which is why she offers to beat me with barbed wire just to get it over with quickly.

She's such a humanitarian.

Edited September 8, 2006 by SilverEagle

[Guest JohnDenver]

Funny? No. Awesome? Yes.

I will be rooting for the starting QB to light up SMU ... and we win.

[mad dog]

You can keep repeating it all you want. The fact is that people don't trust Dickey. They have seen YEARS of him not being able to pick a QB. They have seen YEARS of the "simplifying the game plan" logic and not trusting any QB. This even goes for Hall. The reason Bridges was starting was partly because Hall didn't make the "right" reads and didn't have the experience that Bridges did. There are too numerous examples of this..

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Ok... this will be my last post on this thread, because going around and around like this is giving me tired head.

If you don't trust Dickey, then that's your deal, man, because nothing I can say, nothing HE can say, nothing anyone can say will change your mind, because it is already made up. All I will say is that, if you've seen "years" of this same stuff, then maybe he's been consistent all along, and the thing missing is the fact that...

It is true that the layman may never know if the QB truly made the right read at the line.

Where I can't go with you is this:

However, it is also COMPLETELY possible that our headcoach doesn't truly know if the QB made the right read either.

I think that might be a little silly to think that a football coach at any level (high school included) could not know looking at film if a QB made the right decision. Once again, if you believe that, then there's nothing that can be done to prove it to you otherwise, short of sitting in on a film session with Coach Dickey.

You are essentially saying for us to have faith in the coach and his decisions -- since we really can't see the decision process. I am saying, that asking for our faith in a sub .500 coach with a history of teeter-tottering QB decisions is probably too much to ask.

The coach really hasn't been my main point here. My point has been that the reads and checkdowns are far more important than the casual fan gives them credit for, and, if you want a reason why we're not seeing a change in the rotation, it is because neither guy consistently made good reads. If, by extension, you can't trust that the Coach isn't oblivious, incompetent, or trying to lose, then, once again, there's nothing I can say that will change your mind.

This is false. We saw in the stat line from the UT game a QB that did well and lead us to a score... Yet he still "made the wrong reads."

He completed two passes on that drive, and only one of them (the touchdown) was a good read. The other one was a forced throw into double coverage that led Brandon Jackson into the teeth of a safety, who laid him out. If not for a simply ridiculous job of hanging onto the ball, that shows up as an incompletion.

So yes, he DID make bad reads. The fact that plays were made in SPITE of bad decisions speaks far more to luck and a huge effort from Brandon Jackson, Jamario Thomas, and the offensive than anything Woody did.

Illuvius,

I know you go to team practices and follow the team more closely than most on this board so with all due respect how can you say Philips didn't get totally out performed. Wilson went 5/6 passing with his first year in this offense. Phillips has had a year with playing experience. The right QB won't emerge in one game, but Wilson really showed he's on the right path. Phillips had some chances to make big plays against Texas too. On a play inside the 20 he got good protection, but just threw it into double coverage which was almost picked in the end zone.

If you are looking purely at passing statistics, you can say that. But, as I've been saying all week, if you don't run your team well, it just doesn't matter, because the law of averages will catch up to you soon, and your luck will run out.

What Coach Dickey and Ramon Flanigan are trying to do is create a situation where a QB is so comfortable with the reads and checkdowns he is supposed to make that they can immediately identify the holes in pass coverage or run gap responsibilities and exploit them. If that happens, we won't need to hope or pray for a last minute scramble for the first down. We will already have picked it up, you know what I am saying?

I like your support for the team and support for DD. I'm trying to do the same and want to wait until the OOC schedule to judge his performance. It's hard though, coming off of a devastating season and facing the some of the same exact problems that haven't been fixed coming into this one.

It has been as hard for me as anyone else. Going to all these practices has made me realize that anything I thought I knew was woefully inadequate to fully understand what is going on. As a fan, we only have scores and yards to go off of, which is why it is so important to understand the whole gamut of what is going on during the game. Otherwise, when the coaches do something like yesterday, it will just make no sense, and look like they are morons, even though it is US that really have no clue as to what is going on.

[Cr1028]

He completed two passes on that drive, and only one of them (the touchdown) was a good read.  The other one was a forced throw into double coverage that led Brandon Jackson into the teeth of a safety, who laid him out.  If not for a simply ridiculous job of hanging onto the ball, that shows up as an incompletion.

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Just wanted to note that if MP had been in, that bad read would've been a bad sack.

[Guest JohnDenver]

Coaches[sic] look like they are morons, even though it is US that really have no clue as to what is going on.

So funny .. Why have fans at all!? We are so moronic.

Matt, it isn't about me having "made up my mind" and nothing you or DD "says will change" my mind.

People want to be SHOWN something to change our teensy little moronic minds. We haven't been shown anything from the QB decision making in many many Mean Green moons.

It isn't that we are stupid and don't understand. We don't need to know the EXACT details. That doesn't make us morons. We judge what we see on the field... it hasn't been bright in a while. The proof is in the pudding as they say .. I really want to see that pudding. I want Phillips to succeed under DD. If we go on DD's history, it doesn't look promising.

...and when I said it is completely possible our coach doesn't know the right (and wrong) read... it is hyperbole. He may not know how to coach a QB. I have known many a math wizards over my years that couldn't teach algebra to a middle school kid, but they could find the limit of any equation. With that example, we have two ex-QBs that lead this team. It is COMPLETELY possible we have this situation.

[TIgreen01]

This game is going to be more about our running game than anything else...so if we're playing the right QB to help make better decisions at the line in order to put our running game in a good situation, I can respect that. SMU is soft against the run....they are a smallish, quick defense. I'm sure that the coaching staff knows that SMU's dline is built for sacking QBs, so putting Phillips back there with his complete lack of mobility cannot possibly be about hoping he can throw it downfield.

That said, I've never seen our offense (under DD) be successful without hitting at least 2-3 mid-long range passes per game. I just hope that our line blocks well enough for Phillips to give him a chance...

[Guest JohnDenver]

Just wanted to note that if MP had been in, that bad read would've been a bad sack.

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And if Phillips had been in .. that bad read would have been uncatchable since it would have skipped into double coverage.

Hard work increases your chance of luck.

Luck makes good WRs great.

[Guest JohnDenver]

I'm sure that the coaching staff knows that SMU's dline is built for sacking QBs, so putting Phillips back there with his complete lack of mobility cannot possibly be about hoping he can throw it downfield.

Interesting comment.

So maybe the gameplan is to trick the DL into pinning their ears back and rushing the QB EVERY down (since they know he can't get out of the way). Then gaps open up and JaMario runs wild?

[untgirl04]

What Coach Dickey and Ramon Flanigan are trying to do is create a situation where a QB is so comfortable with the reads and checkdowns he is supposed to make that they can immediately identify the holes in pass coverage or run gap responsibilities and exploit them.  If that happens, we won't need to hope or pray for a last minute scramble for the first down.  We will already have picked it up, you know what I am saying?

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I get what you're saying here, but I can't see how any QB can get into a comfortable situation when he has to share play time with 2 other guys. I understand needing to evaluate the players to see which one comes out on top, but at some point, you've got to just pick a guy and get him reps.

Of course, that's where DD gets himself into a catch-22. Last year, he went with the same guy all year, but the guy didn't perform, so DD got lambasted at every turn for being so pig-headed about the QB.

I think the real root of the problem is the inability to correctly identify the most viable QB candidate before the season starts. To be fair, DD can only assess the talent he's given, so if no one truly has talent at the QB position, then it would be difficult to find a viable starter.

On the other hand, why isn't there any talent at the QB position? (btw, the "no talent" argument is one I'm making for the sake of discussion - not insinuating that our QBs are talentless.) That boils down to recruiting, which you can attribute directly to the coach.

The third alternative to consider is that perhaps it's not the talent of our QBs, but rather the failure of the system to put the QB into situations in which he can excel. This again goes back to the coach...

How's that for circular logic?

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

Greatness, JD. It is very close (although you did it much better) to what I was going to say. I don't expect a quarterback to get it right every time because the other team can mask some of the looks to give the wrong read. But, give me a quarterback, even with mistakes, than can move the chains because of his athletic ability and I'd keep with him until he fails. Rightly, or luckily, Wilson did a much better job of moving the chain than did Phillips.

[e-bone ver2.awesome]

So production basically doesn't matter at all? It is all about making reads? No matter that even when the correct read is made the QB can't make a play?

Illuvius, what exactly in DD's history of mishandling QBs is giving you so much confidence in his decision? And I don't care about what happened in practice or in the film room or on the podcast. I am talking about what happens on the field when the score board is on, the lights are lit up, and there are many thousands of people in the stands.

I guess the good side to this is that there was some funny posts in the first 3 pages of this thread

[GoMeanGreen1999]

After 9 years of DD calling the shots in relation to who plays and who doesn't it is simply amazing that anyone on this board, really thought that Woody would start this game. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the first one off the bench is Meager.

DD makes quotes in the paper and press that he didn't see any QB stick out during the UT game - are you kidding me? Phillips is 4 for 13 for 22 yards and ONE FIRST DOWN, while Woody was 5 for 6 for 80 yards and the ONLY SCORING DRIVE of the game and "you didn't see anything stick out?"

This is why this school will not go anywhere with DD.

[Zeke]

I just want to say I was most proud of the 3 and outs we had last weekend because I feel we made the proper reads then.

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

One other minor little point about Wilson's passing. He should have been six for six passing. The only dropped pass pretty much hit Jackson between the 4 and the 9. He was thinking about YAC and simply took his eye off of the ball.

[Cr1028]

One other minor little point about Wilson's passing.  He should have been six for six passing.  The only dropped pass pretty much hit Jackson between the 4 and the 9.  He was thinking about YAC and simply took his eye off of the ball.

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Yea but it was bad read and thats why Jackson refused to catch it.

Edited September 9, 2006 by Cr1028

[LonghornScott]

This probably an odd thread to jump into with a first post, especially as a fan of another program... but I think I have some experience and thoughts that are relevant.

The discussion in this thread reminds me a lot of a similar discussion that happened in Longhorn football circles about 3 years ago.

The players in our discussion were Chance Mock and Vincent Young. Chance was a system guy. He knew the offense, he knew how to get us in the right play, he knew how execute the offensive gameplan. It was blindingly obvious through the spring and preseason practices (all of which I attended) that Chance Mock was the correct choice as a starter. Vince was still making a lot of mental mistakes: trouble getting calls in, delay of game penalties, passes skipping off the grass in warm-ups, etc. Hopefully, you're starting to see some parallels.

I sincerely believed going into the season that Chance belonged behind center and I defended that position til I was red in the face to all the people that were calling for Mack to name Vince the starter. Then something happened. Vince Young played against New Mexico State in our first game. He took the second team offense down the field with more ease than I had ever seen from a Greg Davis offense. In that drive he was improvising with his feet... then he threw a 40 yard bomb down the sideline for a touchdown. I knew after that drive that I was just wrong... because I saw that Vince Young just making plays was better than anything that Greg Davis (our OC) was going to design. Vince Young brought an etirely different set of skills than Chance Mock ever could, and I had severly undervalued them. In his own words he was on a "whole nother level, dawg." I realized after that game that if we would just retool our offense to feature Vince's skills that we would have a powerhouse offense. It was an ugly year before our coaches went that route.

Now, Woody Wilson is not Vince Young. But if you didn't see a huge gap between the tools that Wilson brings to the table and those that Phillips does, then you need to wake up. It doesn't matter if Wilson knows the whole offense... hell they could run a six-play, high-school package with his talents and it would represent a hell of a lot more of a threat than their current attack with Phillips. The one play that they had installed that took advantage of his speed was the playaction rollout. Wilson was repeatedly able to stretch out one of the fastest defenses in college football and led his team to a scoring drive on a day where they were otherwise entirely unsuccessful on offense. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

In the end, I don't blame coaches. Or rather, I see what motivates their sometimes odd decisions. It's a big risk to retool your offense to fit your QB. Even at the NFL level, most coaches are unwilling to take the risk of installing a new offensive system to suit an individual QBs tools. The problem is that coaches often undervalue the basic tools of the game because they are so caught up in the world of scheme. Having the right line call, the right route adjustments, the correct checkdown, the correct post-snap reads. But if you've got a talent that can put pressure on the defense's fundamental pursuit and containment, it skull fucks any advatage that you would gain in scheme. It means that you can be simple. It means that you can dictate. Take what the defense gives you... that's what we always hear from offensive coaches. But look at the most dominant offenses... they succeed because they are tailored to their biggest talents.

With Woody and Jamario, your offense should be a spread attack. Put Woody back in the gun and stretch the defense out. This will limit how many men they can load in the box and it will greatly simplify their blitzing options. That's a whole 'nother discussion, but what I'm really getting at is that the coaches should be trying to figure out how to get the most out of Wilson's tools and they should be doing it now. Anything less is just the fear learning and implimenting a new system.

[Got5onIt]

This probably an odd thread to jump into with a first post, especially as a fan of another program... but I think I have some experience and thoughts that are relevant.

The discussion in this thread reminds me a lot of a similar discussion that happened in Longhorn football circles about 3 years ago. 

The players in our discussion were Chance Mock and Vincent Young.  Chance was a system guy.  He knew the offense, he knew how to get us in the right play, he knew how execute the offensive gameplan.  It was blindingly obvious through the spring and preseason practices (all of which I attended) that Chance Mock was the correct choice as a starter.  Vince was still making a lot of mental mistakes: trouble getting calls in, delay of game penalties, passes skipping off the grass in warm-ups, etc.  Hopefully, you're starting to see some parallels.

I sincerely believed going into the season that Chance belonged behind center and I defended that position til I was red in the face to all the people that were calling for Mack to name Vince the starter.  Then something happened.  Vince Young played against New Mexico State in our first game.  He took the second team offense down the field with more ease than I had ever seen from a Greg Davis offense.  In that drive he was improvising with his feet... then he threw a 40 yard bomb down the sideline for a touchdown.  I knew after that drive that I was just wrong... because I saw that Vince Young just making plays was better than anything that Greg Davis (our OC) was going to design.  Vince Young brought an etirely different set of skills than Chance Mock ever could, and I had severly undervalued them.  In his own words he was on a "whole nother level, dawg."  I realized after that game that if we would just retool our offense to feature Vince's skills that we would have a powerhouse offense.  It was an ugly year before our coaches went that route.

Now, Woody Wilson is not Vince Young.  But if you didn't see a huge gap between the tools that Wilson brings to the table and those that Phillips does, then you need to wake up.  It doesn't matter if Wilson knows the whole offense... hell they could run a six-play, high-school package with his talents and it would represent a hell of a lot more of a threat than their current attack with Phillips.  The one play that they had installed that took advantage of his speed was the playaction rollout.  Wilson was repeatedly able to stretch out one of the fastest defenses in college football and led his team to a scoring drive on a day where they were otherwise entirely unsuccessful on offense.  It doesn't get any clearer than that.

In the end, I don't blame coaches.  Or rather, I see what motivates their sometimes odd decisions.  It's a big risk to retool your offense to fit your QB.  Even at the NFL level, most coaches are unwilling to take the risk of installing a new offensive system to suit an individual QBs tools.  The problem is that coaches often undervalue the basic tools of the game because they are so caught up in the world of scheme.  Having the right line call, the right route adjustments, the correct checkdown, the correct post-snap reads.  But if you've got a talent that can put pressure on the defense's fundamental pursuit and containment, it skull fucks any advatage that you would gain in scheme.  It means that you can be simple.  It means that you can dictate.  Take what the defense gives you... that's what we always hear from offensive coaches.  But look at the most dominant offenses... they succeed because they are tailored to their biggest talents.

With Woody and Jamario, your offense should be a spread attack.  Put Woody back in the gun and stretch the defense out.  This will limit how many men they can load in  the box and it will greatly simplify their blitzing options.  That's a whole 'nother discussion, but what I'm really getting at is that the coaches should be trying to figure out how to get the most out of Wilson's tools and they should be doing it now.  Anything less is just the fear learning and implimenting a new system.

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Great Post!

Even if you are a Shorthorn.

[Coffee and TV]

well I don't know much, but I do know I like beer.

[EagleD]

What a clear, articulate and insightful post, LonhornScott. Welcome to the board, and thank you for providing a well thought out opinion rather than a rant which most of us (myself included) have chosen to do.

For those of us who want Woody to start, here's what I suggest. When you see him step ono the field (which he surely will), CHEER LIKE HELL !! If we generate enough noise and excitment b/c the POTENTIAL one player has, Dickey will notice. He may not make his decision soley based on our enthusiasm, but it will make an impression.

GO MEAN GREEN !!!!!

BEAT THE HELL OUT OF smu !!!!!!!!!

Edited September 9, 2006 by EagleD

[chrisfisher]

Great Post!

Even if you are a Shorthorn. 

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Fantastic post LonghornScott! I really wish our coaches read this analogy as I believe this best articulates what many on this board have expressed. A "mistaken" 80 yard drive by Woody?!? I say first, "who cares!" I say next, "keep making mistakes." We need offensive improvisation and as many "mistakes" as possible.

[DeepGreen]

For those of us who want Woody to start, here's what I suggest.  When you see him step ono the field (which he surely will), CHEER LIKE HELL !!  If we generate enough noise and excitment b/c the POTENTIAL one player has, Dickey will notice.  He may not make his decision soley based on our enthusiasm, but it will make an impression.

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Like -

WOODY!

WOODY!

WOODY!

WOODY!

[Guest JohnDenver]

I think what longhornScott said has come to fruition ... The need to run the plays to Woody's strengths and stick with it.

I like the play calling when WW was at the helm.

[meangreendork]

Wilson really completes the offensive package for UNT. We have good RBs, very fast WRs, and now a QB that'll really hurt you if you're not careful. This guy can cover 12 yards in the time most QBs take for 6. I'd be easily convinced he's easily fast enough to be a receiver.

And I won't lie to you, Wilson helps make our offensive drives dramatic and really entertaining.